


(hang on) Tightly, (let go) Lightly

by verushka70



Category: Hard Core Logo (1996)
Genre: Early Days, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 00:07:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4039903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verushka70/pseuds/verushka70
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy held himself back, held himself at arm’s length, until Joe over-reached. Until Joe’s genuine affection -- partly permitted but mostly muzzled -- mixed with Billy’s coolness into a cocktail that filled Joe like a cup with a hole in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(hang on) Tightly, (let go) Lightly

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted April 18, 2006 to the [HCL Fic Exchange](http://hcl-fic.livejournal.com/) for recipient [dayse](http://dayse.livejournal.com/). Great thanks to [malnpudl](http://malnpudl.livejournal.com/) for beta. Posted here with minor fixes (and comma wrangling).

When Joe came to himself again from dozing, Billy was a softly snoring, wiry mass of muscle and bone half under him. Joe had a leg thrown over Billy, an arm under him (arm totally asleep now: bitch of pins and needles to come), and his other arm around Billy, threaded under his armpit. His cheek lay against the nape of Billy’s neck; his lips touched muscle between Billy’s neck and shoulder. He held Billy, held him close to his chest like cards in a high stakes game. The motel room door was locked and the chain was on.

Slim little fucker, Billy was, nothing like Joe’s own meaty self. Slim and sly and (though no one knew it) sometimes shy. It came off as aloof or arrogant. That played well in interviews. At least, those were the adjectives rock hacks used about Billy. Only Joe knew it was residual shyness leftover from the usual teen angst and humiliations.

Joe opened his eyes to dark. Dark, dank, shitty motel room. Warm smell of stale smoke and spunk and the creamy smell of Billy’s scalp. Billy’s breathing was slow and shallow: a small animal not meant to be caught but momentarily held still for catch and release after being drugged and tagged.

Joe felt the fullness of his bladder and his half-hard cock, but ignored both for the moment. His eyes adjusted to the dark; he could distinguish between the gray of the walls and furniture and bedclothes, the thin ribbon of black outside, and the shadowy, drawn motel room drapes.

Without moving anything but the arm threaded through Billy’s armpit, he pulled Billy tight against his own chest and inhaled slowly and deeply. Joe always took what he could get, and if he could only get it when Billy was asleep, fuck, he’d take it.

They were like cell division when they were alone together behind locked doors. First indivisible, one in – or on – the other. Then at a certain point, with no warning, they suddenly pulled apart into two. Billy was too restless, too squirmy, too _boy_ to lie tangled together for long. Once awake, he pulled away. Conscious again (and no longer distracted by lust or need), he separated.

FSF, they called it between themselves: fucksleepfuck. Their private joke. Never spoken openly in front of others and only whispered in the other’s ear or mouthed across a room when one of them couldn’t stand it any longer.

Really it was more drinkfucksleepfucksleepsleepsleep – the fucking being fast and furious and them usually boozed and blissed out enough afterward to sleep through a train crash. Then they’d sleep and recharge and fuck again. Fucking, sucking, jacking each other, jacking themselves for the other’s eyes – whatever. It was all fucking to Joe.

It had taken Joe more than a couple years to understand why he sometimes wanted to punch things (people, walls) after his and Billy's all-nighters.

Those nights Joe held nothing back. He destroyed clothing in the process of disrobing himself or Billy. Into nights like this, Joe piled all the tension and frustration of being an arm’s length from Billy and no closer for days or weeks on end, ‘til the cunt-rary motherfucker let himself be had. And though the intention was never to scratch, bruise or abrade Billy, the two of them often came out the next morning looking like they’d been fighting.

Then over the course of the next day, Billy would mess with Joe. He would touch his bruises or scrapes and stare at Joe while he did it. Eyes cool and big under his spikes and above his wide cheekbones, he’d slowly rub a bruise Joe had bitten into his shoulder or a scrape on his forearm from Joe holding him down or a scratch on his jaw where Joe accidentally raked him with a ring while fucking his face.

Billy would meet Joe’s eyes from across the van (across the table, across the bar) while touching the places Joe had marked him.

Joe’s cock would twitch and start to stiffen. He’d turn away so he wouldn’t get full-fledged hard watching Billy touch himself everywhere that he'd roughed him up ravishing him the night before.

When Joe turned back around, cock under control somewhat, Billy would have that smug smile on his face -- the one only Joe could read.

Half the time if anyone heard them fucking around together, it probably sounded like they were fighting. This suited Billy fine. Their brawling was a known quantity, anyway -- it sometimes happened onstage or in the clubs after shows. It took Joe a while to figure out that half the time, the reason he wanted to pound Billy was because he didn’t have him – didn’t have _enough_ of him.

But the brawling – well, Mulligan played it up, even warned bookers about it sometimes. Part of the legend, baby. So everyone bought into the bullshit, the clichéd creative conflict angle. Whatever.

The only one who ever seemed to give it a second thought or gave them a thoughtful look, was John. If he knew or guessed, he said nothing. He just looked at Joe with that impassive expression that was sometimes sociopathically calm and other times wise beyond his years.

Everything had to be boiled down to simple, didn’t it? Everything had to be pigeon-holed, given a handle so people could pick it up, look at it, think they understood, and then toss it down in search of the next topic or toy. Billy wasn’t okay with people knowing the truth. So Joe let everyone think his and Billy’s only physical contact consisted of drunken affection and spats or brawls.

It seemed hypocritical. But then Joe lied constantly, all the time, about anything, for any reason, regardless of and in ways unrelated to Billy. Just because he could; just because it was fun; just because he liked to spread disinformation. Joe enjoyed the perverse paradox of never living up to the stories he told and statements he made. He sure as hell wasn’t going to rat Billy out for doing essentially the same thing.

Besides, Billy was his to protect or pound. No one else was allowed the privilege. Anyway it was mostly pawing, not pounding. Except for the good kind of pounding.

Had Billy not cared, Joe would neither have gone around telling everyone about him and Billy nor denied it if asked directly. It was what it was. Last year, last month, now, next month, next year. Undefined, unforgettable, unfinished.

He exhaled into Billy’s shoulder now, thinking how cheerfully and smoothly Billy would slip out of his arms if he were awake. Billy got that smirk on his face after a night with Joe -- a spring in his step that always took him swiftly away from Joe. It pissed Joe off how easily Billy let go. He would have bet money that letting go, sliding out of his grasp, was the part that made Billy happiest. Though Billy constantly provoked Joe to take him (and gave it up so good after only token resistance), he was never as happy being possessed as he was slipping away. Joe eventually realized it was the escape that made it good for Billy.

So Billy held himself back, held himself away, at arm’s length, just out of reach… until Joe over-reached. Or worse, until Joe’s genuine affection -- partly permitted but mostly muzzled by their public façade -- mixed with Billy’s coolness into a cocktail that filled Joe like a cup with a hole in it.

Got to a point where Joe had to hustle Billy off away from the band and the girls and the booze and just _take_ the FSF.

Besides. If it’s escape that drives your bus, then you’ve got to be caught. You can’t escape if you’re not a captive.

Again and again.

It was the catching and possessing that made it good for Joe.

The flipside: you can’t take something if it’s already yours. The joy of coveting, of hunting, of choosing your moment, then _taking_ it – that all stops once it’s yours and stays that way.

And the harder it is to get, the more pleasurable the possessing.

When Billy stared at him across a table, across the van, where ever, Joe remembered each time he took Billy, boring a hole in Billy with his own eyes. Remembered smells of sweat and spunk, tiny floor tiles pressing patterns into his or Billy's knees, Billy’s hips slipping in his sweaty hands as he tried to hold them, the two of them biting their tongues and lips to smother gasps and moans in a grimy backstage bathroom.

Joe had mentally pinned down and preserved like insect specimens every capture of Billy (those he could remember outside alcoholic blackouts), just without the killing jar. Maybe occasionally with a little damage but nothing that broke Billy’s wings, not ever. Sometimes remembering led to brooding for Joe. Mostly it led to wicked what-I’m-gonna-do-to-you-next thinking.

Which was probably why, holding Billy’s wiry body to him, Joe sensed the inevitable big flight. He didn’t know when – could be weeks, months, years ahead. But he knew that one of these days Billy would really escape. He’d always been a cagey motherfucker. Not happy in the now.

For Joe, _now_ was all there was.

So now in the four AM darkness, Joe slowly and inexorably pulled Billy tighter to him, his grasp initially gentle and ending up python-like. Joe would take what he could get when he could get it. To hell with the arm that fell asleep under Billy. He drowsily curved his half-stiff cock against the bare ass of his best friend. Hardest of all he pressed his chest against Billy’s back and hung on tightly.

~ ~ ~

Billy didn’t know what woke him. Could have been a sound. Maybe Joe snored or twitched. Billy was generally a light sleeper. Now he came to himself tucked tightly half-under Joe.

Warm was what it was with Joe wrapped around him. Joe was heavy, his leg dead weight on Billy’s legs and his breath on Billy’s collarbone and it was all right and all good and what a fuckin’ dink.

Joe, fucker that he was, was cool as cucumber – to a point. Then behind closed doors Joe shamelessly burned his way through the cool and crashed into Billy, hard. Then it was getting head, and jacking off, and giving head, and fucking – the whole FSF thing only they knew about. Maybe some aggressive punches thrown and bullshit wrestling with each other. Joe was a brawler; learned it at home; Billy knew that.

Joe was like a cat that bit you, hard, when it really, _really_ liked the way you were petting it -- or when it was just plain fuckin’ time you paid it some serious attention, _now_.

But his physicality was mostly symbolic, the dominance display in a tight wolf pack. No one was ever killed or permanently damaged. There was just enough force to get everyone back in their rightful place.

Like Billy’s. Under Joe.

Every time it happened, whether it started with pounding or pawing, Billy didn’t understand why Joe held himself back for so long while he waited and waited _and waited_ for Joe to grab him away from the band, away from the crowd, off alone. Motel room (locked and latched), back of the van (when Billy and Joe had the only set of keys), bathroom stall (also for doing drugs: plausible deniability). It didn’t matter where it finally happened. The intensity of Joe as he launched himself at Billy or threw him down on the floor or shoved him hard up against a wall or stall door, was like a roller coaster. Literally. First exciting, then scary, then exhilarating. When it’s over, you want to ride again. Right away.

All Billy cared about was that it stayed just between him and Joe… and that it _happen_ already, for chrissakes.

What a bitch. Joe looked at Billy, constantly watched Billy, followed Billy around the room with his eyes, no matter who he was bullshitting or talking to or putting the moves on…

And sat _back_. And did _nothing_.

The fuck?

It had become kind of a game for Billy: How to provoke Joe. He had figured out (by now) that enough evenings in a row of Joe following him with his eyes as Billy dragged some groupie girl around (or better yet was pawed by her, repeatedly, and sluttily) turned up the flame under Joe’s slow burn. Even if Joe himself felt up on or kissed some girl, he‘d watch Billy around or over the girl’s head the way you watch porn while fucking.

Might take a while – might take a lot more of the same – but eventually Joe got around to it. Fuckin’ dink. Billy would’ve talked about it with Joe, except they

Never. Talked. About. That.

Which was okay mostly. Words weren’t necessary. Actually, it was usually better when they didn’t speak, except in the moment. Talk could be trouble – about the band, its future, plans. Joe was agreeable to everything, and active or proactive about nothing. Except selling T-shirts.

Frustrating as hell. Billy often wondered, would he have to do _everything_? Find better management? Get better bookings? Fuck, the self-appointed leader of the band wasn’t doing it, that’s for sure. Once, to placate Billy, Joe said something about getting Ed Festus. Then never mentioned it again.

So: better when they didn’t talk, when their mouths were occupied with other things.

Like cock.

Even thumbs.

 _Groupies long gone, they’d shared a few joints (Joe was aggressive on liquor, but languid on pot). They were half-heartedly pawing each other on the bed, still in their clothes. Then Joe undid Billy’s jeans. Billy expected Joe to whip it out and start jacking it or sucking it, but Joe didn’t._

_Joe undid his own jeans. He took himself out and started jacking. He hust watched Billy. Watched Billy do nothing. Looked Billy right in the eye and jacked himself off._

_Watching Joe jack off while Joe focused on Billy, got Billy hard – like, immediately. Or maybe it was just simply Joe jacking off, period. Billy had to take his cock out and jack off too._

_Since it seemed like they were just gonna jack themselves off and watch each other – slightly disappointing on the one hand, and kind of fuckin’ hot on the other hand – Billy started to get into it._

_He stopped watching Joe watch him, stopped watching Joe jack off, and started looking down at his own cock. Closed his eyes and really got into it. For some reason, even with his eyes closed, knowing Joe watched him and feeling the bed shake with their combined masturbation efforts was fucking erotic as hell._

_Then there was a touch on his cheek, a rough stroke. Billy opened his eyes. Joe still watched him, but Joe’s left hand stroked Billy’s cheek while they both lay on their sides facing each other and jacked off in the small space between their clothed bodies. Joe reached across and took Billy’s left hand. He put it on his own face, spread Billy’s fingers apart, and put Billy’s thumb up to his lips._

_Joe sucked Billy’s thumb tightly into his mouth. He worked it, the fucker, worked it and sucked it and stroked it with his tongue as if it was Billy’s cock. Then Joe reached to stroke Billy’s cheek and put his own thumb in Billy’s mouth._

_It was like jacking off while giving head, but not. At the same time it was fucking hot. They watched each other and glanced down at each other’s hammering hands on their own cocks and sucked each other’s thumbs like hungry animals._

_Somehow the thumb sucking pushed Billy’s needle into red._

_He felt himself coming and accidentally clamped his teeth down on Joe’s thumb as he began to spurt. Joe didn’t bite Billy, just held Billy’s thumb hard with his teeth. He shifted his glance up to Billy’s face, sucked harder on Billy’s thumb through the grip of his teeth, and began to move rhythmically. They exploded on each other, Joe half a second – if that – behind Billy. He splashed come all over Billy’s belly and T-shirt and the bed between them, and Billy did the same to Joe._

_The entire time – while Billy looked down at his spurting cock, then at Joe’s, then squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again – Joe did nothing but gaze at Billy’s face. His eyes narrowed, his brows lifted. The corners of his sucking mouth turned up as his wet, muffled grunts came around Billy’s thumb and his body jerked involuntarily. The rest of Joe’s fingers curved possessively around Billy’s jaw, digging in slightly, jerking with each of Joe’s spurts. Joe’s unwavering focus on him made Billy’s face burn._

_After they’d both wrung themselves out but good, squeezing the last stringy drops onto each other’s T-shirts, Joe rolled Billy over on his back, lay belly to belly on him, and took hold of Billy’s neck with his teeth. Then he switched from teeth to tongue and licked his way up to Billy’s mouth._

_“Billiam,” was all he murmured in a short breath between kisses, grabbing Billy’s chin with fingers and wet thumb to force Billy’s mouth open wider._

Billy didn’t mind Joe’s aggressiveness. It was one side of a two-sided coin. As aggressive as Joe was, he was equally -- _dink_ \-- giving. With practicing, with writing songs, with hugs too. Not just with Billy, but John and Pipe, too.

(For Billy only, Joe was also giving with head. Drunk, sober, high, tired, angry, wicked happy – Joe was giving, and amazing, with the _head_.)

More than that, Joe was giving with encouragement, with compliments on Billy’s playing and technique. They’d learned guitar together, but Billy’s talent was truly musical. Joe’s was more showmanship. He knew it, he was okay with it, and he never tried to pretend any different. Just bolstered all the good stuff that came out of Billy, egged on Billy’s thrash, demanded more from Billy and his guitars.

Billy loved him for it.

Joe gave him confidence that they could conquer the world.

If they could just get better bookings. Bigger clubs.

Joe's foot-dragging was so annoying. He wanted things to stay the same. _It ain’t broke; don’t fix it,_ Joe said when the trouble of talking pushed him past his tolerance and he was done. _It ain’t broke_ , he’d say one last time. And get up and walk away.

It wasn’t broke, that was true. It was great that Joe knew Billy was the best guitarist. That most of Vancouver did, too. But Billy wanted to show the rest of the world. Not for nothing had he started out on piano or been in band as a kid.

(And endured being called a fag for it, which was really ironic in two ways. One, now he could have _any_ chick in the audience after a show, and almost constantly did; those "fag" musical talents got him enough tail for ten guys. Two, he did suck dick now... but only Joe’s. 

Billy would have liked to see some of the pricks he’d gone to school with – wanted to see them in a club after he’d just done a gig and burned up the stage, callouses sore, maybe bleeding. Probably all pathetic losers now, ball-and-chained with wives and brats and a rat race Billy never even _considered_ after the first time he picked up a guitar.)

Billy had figured out how life worked, the best way to survive. He’d learned it from his father when the second girl with a major thing for him suddenly started snubbing him… just like the first one had. He hadn’t exactly revealed his crushing disappointment and humiliation to his dad. Just asked how you got back a girl who liked you before, and suddenly stopped liking you for no apparent reason.

And his father had said, “Hang on tightly. Let go lightly.”

Typically cryptic, and not highly helpful. When pressed, his father never explained it, just said, “ _Think_ about it” and went back to changing the oil.

Billy thought about it. First: _hang on tightly_. Hang on tightly seemed to mean hang on the girl, all over her -- touch her, hug her, do everything you could.

Then, _let go lightly_. The second part. Step away, walk away, be cool -- like suddenly you couldn’t care less if you were with her or not.

It _worked_.

In order to get a girl to like you and want you and not leave, first you gave her a _big_ dose of you… then took yourself away (no matter how hard it might be).

It was like addiction. Feed it first -- then it feeds itself.

But as Billy grew up, he realized it worked for more than just women. It worked on the world. It worked on stage. With journalists.

Give them what they want… but only in short, intense, measured doses. Then split.

And they _loved_ you.

Strangest of all, he’d discovered that _hang on tightly, let go lightly_ worked on Joe.

Joe was still a solid, warm animal wrapped around Billy. It was good… Except Billy wanted more. More Joe. More of Joe on him, around him, in him.

Billy pushed back slightly into the warmth of Joe, then began sliding sideways out of Joe’s grasp.

_Let go lightly._

Like while Joe was sleeping.

But just as Billy slid out from under Joe’s heavy arm and leg, he felt something change subtly behind him.

It wasn’t so much that Joe moved, as that suddenly Joe was _there_. His breathing wasn’t any different, but Billy felt him wake up.

Joe’s grasp tightened.

“Where ya goin’?” Joe’s smoke and sleep clogged voice rasped. He coughed and cleared his throat. He tightened his grasp, pulled Billy back against him. “Don’t think so.”

Joe rolled both of them fully over on their stomachs, to lay on top of Billy’s back. He held Billy’s wrists, not painfully, just put his hands on top of Billy’s wrists and settled himself on top of Billy, pushing Billy down into the mattress.

He pressed his cock against one of Billy’s buttocks while biting his shoulder.

“Joe…”

_Hang on tightly. Let go lightly._

Good old predictable Joe nuzzled the back of Billy’s neck, now. Hot breath and murmurs made the hair stand up on Billy's arms…

“FSF, Billiam. One F and one S down, one F to go.”

Billy smiled to himself in the dark.  


**Author's Note:**

> "Hang on tightly, let go lightly," is a line of dialogue from the totally non-HCL-related film Croupier, with Clive Owen. 
> 
> [malnpudl](http://malnpudl.livejournal.com/) not only beta-ed, she helped me choose the best story of a few that I wrote for the fic exchange, the one that best fit my recipient [dayse](http://dayse.livejournal.com/)'s wishlist. 
> 
> At the time this fic exchange occurred, I was just beginning a very difficult road IRL, though I didn't know it then; I just knew it was bad and worsening. As often occurs with severe stress, I have large chunks of missing memory from that time. Fortunately, all the great fic from the [HCL Fic Exchange](http://hcl-fic.livejournal.com/) is still there.


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